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Alan Tomlinson · Quiz Virgin Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 3

HELLO ALL.

Firstly can i say on behalf of all the members of the Gaping Goose team how much we have enjoyed our first season in the league and i would like to thank all the teams we have played this season for making us feel welcome.With a season under our belts i am sure we will be able to mount a much stronger challenge next year providing there are no more science rounds.
Now on to my point.
As newcomers we have noticed throughout the season that the outcome of matches is invariably decided by the individual rounds and we feel that this is due to the weighting of points and luck in where you are sat.Now this has worked for and against us this season so maybe i should just shut up but it is after all a TEAM quiz and not a seating arrangements competition.I am personally in favour of at least one individual round but not where the points are more heavily weighted in its favour.
Could someone please explain why "easier" individual questions get 3 points/2 points as opposed to team questions 2points/1 point.One bad individual round and the contest is over as its very very difficult to make up that deficit on the team rounds.An example of this is our match against Grove Lea(a very good team)where we won six of the eight team rounds but lost by miles due to one bad set of individual questions.I am sure many other teams have suffered similar fates.
I am not offering up any solutions to the point i have raised but would be interested to hear a response from anyone with thoughts on this particular topic as i may just be treading over old ground.

CHEERS ALAN

peterpotato · Team Captain Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 101

A good post, Alan, and a very good debut season by The Goose. You will be better next season, no doubt, and yes, I'm with you on the Science rounds !!

The individual rounds have ALWAYS been the most contentious part of our quizzes, and regularly develop into a Mrs Merton "heated debate" at the AGM ! Over the years, we have tried four, three, and now only two individual rounds, and a variety of scoring systems in them. Previous years have also been "specific subjects" rather than just "general knowledge", but the current system is the one voted in by a majority at the last AGM.

My opinion has changed many times over the years, but right now my thoughts are :-

Remain as two individual rounds. Three is OK, I could go for that, but four is too many, and just increases the chances of massive points differences.

Do away with "general knowledge", and make them "subject specific". This would hopefully make all 8 questions of a similar standard, rather than what I think exists at present, where some are too easy, with the odd one very difficult, which nobody gets. This should reduce the effect of being sat in "the wrong seat". If you don't know "Science", like me, you're not going to get it no matter where you sit !! Hopefully though, other members of your team will get their question right.

To state the obvious, individual rounds should test all 4 individuals in a team, but should not be so over-valued as to make the rest of the quiz practically pointless. So yes, the 3 points (and 2 points for a bonus) may need bringing into line with the scoring in team rounds. It should never happen where a team wins the majority of rounds, but still gets thrashed, solely on the basis of two (or even just one) bad individual round.

Another option I would welcome is to give 4 subject categories (e.g. cricket, knitting, Hitchcock, Nobel Prizes)in the later individual round, and for each team to nominate (after consultation) a player for each subject. This gives the team a degree of control over their ability to score points in this individual round, as they match the player to the category.

Just a few thoughts. Anybody else ?

Guest

Hiya Pete
I am undecided in regards to your change of individuals by having subject areas. I seem to think the Doncaster league used to do this...or maybe I am wrong...but I digress. I feel that this would not bring out the level playing field that you are keen for. Our team, for instance, would really suffer with Sport, especially Cricket. If that was one of the Individual choices then that would limit the chances of the team member who would be left with that subject (probably Steve in our team) and what if we had two subjects that we all struggled with? I know that this would be the same for everyone but it worries me a bit. Having said that, however, I will now contradict myself because, in one way, it would be better to know the area as at the moment General Knowledge can not help but veer towards signficant subject areas. For example, on Monday, I was lucky enough to have 2 questons on entertainment in my Individuals (and was unlucky enough not to know them Embarassed

hence my dip in the Individuals Crying or Very sad

but hey! thats all part of the game). So you see, as I mentioned earlier, I am not sure as yet....Maybe we could try it for a season and see Question

........Can I get back to you on it?
Deb

Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject:

i like this idea of picking a choice, i first came across it when reading for the top house in the wednesday league, the subject rounds for the second individual round are given at the half time break, and the captain has until the start of the round to give the sheet to the question master naming who will take what subject. i wont be picking science for myself also!!
on the 3point/2point thingy, i think that the individual should carry more points as they are on the individual not the team, but i think the passover should only be 1 point, another heated discussion apparent at this years AGM i think!!

Giotto · Quiz Virgin Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 21

post
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Barry Simmons

Andrew Lyman · Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 8:44 pm Post subject:

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 8:16 pm Post subject:
It s somewhat depressing to note the attitudes of teams who are weak in a particular subject area to ask for fewer questions in that area.

We are a quiz league, after all, and surely we should all welcome questions in weaker areas as a chance to improve our knowledge.

Another post designed to endear yourself to the less able quizzers in our league, Barry? Laughing

I remind you of your reply to my post, where I informed the general populace that you were unable to answer the question about David and Victoria Beckham's wedding - you said that you didn't care.
That's your call - I'm not that bothered about it either - but I'd have scored 3 points if I had been sat in your place. As did a number of other quizzers that night.

It's only natural for anyone to want a quiz designed entirely around their own likes and interests, and eliminating their own dislikes. Darren won't set a quiz based entirely on Science, or Greek Mythology, or seven seasons of Big Brother, but may set rounds, or paired questions on these, or any other subject. The purpose of this forum is to discuss amongst ourselves what we want from Darren, so he can better the (already excellent) service he provides to us. And it is true that many teams still have no representatives in this forum, and while that remains the case no decisions will be made on the questions until the AGM in October.

As you were.

Guest · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:15 am Post subject: subjects

While I accept that any area is vaild for questions. My key concern about this season's quizzes is the dominance of sport. Could anyone tell me how many weeks we have had a quiz without any questions on sport at all? I would love to know too how many of the quizzes had sport as a round. It seems that even if we don't have sport have a round there creeps quite a few in there. I have my prefered subjects -everyone does- but I don't think it was be preferable to have a round on enterainment or literature every week. Also there are many areas not covered this year.
Could the committtee look at this for me please?
Thankyou

Giotto · Quiz Virgin Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 21

Andrew,

As you are well aware I deleted that post shortly after I made it as, on reflection, I felt that it did not represent the point I wanted to make and I did not wish to cause offense to anyone.

But as you have raised it I reiterate that in my view an ideal quiz is a balanced quiz over all areas of knowledge and should not lean to any particular subject areas because of any particular team or individuals likes or dislikes.

I don't particularly like pop culture questions but Darren has an absolute right to set them as they are part of the sum total of human knowledge and I would not be happy with any quiz that excluded them, or any other topic.

I feel Darren has achieved an excellent balance this year and only wish that he were able to provide questions for the Airedale league, which are currently very much inferior.
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Barry Simmons

peterpotato · Team Captain Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 101

I've had enough of watching Liverpool winning in the Champions League, so I thought I'd have a bash at this !!

Having just re-read previous comments on this thread, I feel vindicated on two points previously made. Firstly, Gaping Goose do seem to be doing better in their second season, and good luck to them.

Secondly, and on the point of the individual rounds, I think we missed a trick by keeping them as "general knowledge" rounds when we voted on it at the AGM. As mentioned last season, it seems there is still a wide variation in the level of individual question - some are very easy, some are much harder. So, from Monday's quiz, which is still fresh in my mind, there were a pair of questions on abbreviations (by the way, why is "abbreviation" such a long word ???) which were good, and maybe all 8 questions should have been on this subject. I would have no problem with this at all. But also in the same round was a much harder question (to my mind) regarding the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632. Who ???

I'm sure everybody else can remember very easy questions (and if they fell your way, good luck to you !!), and also very hard questions (if these fell your way, hard luck !!) during the individual rounds this season.

My point is that if we did have all 8 individual questions in the round on abbreviations, or 8 questions on current television adverts, or 8 questions on Swedish Kings (!!) etc, the chances of being sat in the wrong seat would be greatly reduced. Consequently, the outcome of the entire quiz is less likely to hinge on the results of the two individual rounds.

Does this make sense ?

Guest · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:53 am Post subject:

i again find myself agreeing with you Pete, does happen now and again lol, being one of the 'unlucky' ones Confused

on monday. we found ourselves losing the first individual round 13-1, but only losing the quiz by seven points, winning quite a few of the other rounds on the way.

i liked this idea when first discussed and still do, maybe time for the agenda for next years agm to start eh!!

peterpotato · Team Captain Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 101

As it's still fairly fresh in my mind, a thought on the scoring for individual rounds.

In our Cup match last night against Brenda's team, we lost the first round, roughly 10-2. We lost the second round by a similar score. We were rubbish !! Worse than that though, Brenda's team were on fire !!

But then, a funny thing happened. We won the third round (the first individual) by approx 18-3. I'm not too sure that Brenda was laughing, but this meant that by the huge stroke of luck of our team being sat in the right seats, and I suppose Brenda's team being sat in the wrong seats, the scores were just about level after 3 rounds.

This was just plain unfair.

The only conclusion is that 3 points for a right answer, 2 for a passover, is just too many. It's been mentioned before, but with this scoring system, the ridiculous situation still exists where a team can win 9 of the 10 rounds, but still lose the quiz, if they've been thrashed in just one individual round.

I can sense a heated debate coming on at the next AGM !!

Giotto · Quiz Virgin Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 21

The Individual rounds would possibly be fairer if the questions were passed to another team member first before passing over to the opposition.

Of course the drawback to this is that the strong teams would probably still get all the points.

As I see it, one of the benefits of the current system is that it puts a random factor in the quiz which can sometimes work to equalise differences in strengths thus making the results more 'interesting'.
_________________
Barry Simmons

Andrew Lyman · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:57 am Post subject: An old-timer writes....

At the very start of the league, Individual rounds worked like MQL / QLL rounds - Team A player 1 had a question and (s)he could either answer it for three points, OR pass it to a team-mate for one point; if (s)he answered incorrectly the question was passed over to the opposing player (note, not the opposing team) for two points or to his or her team-mates for one point.

What you seem to be proposing is subtly different; that team A player 1 gets to answer the question, and it is passed to his or her team-mates if an incorrect answer is submitted (and thence on to the opposing player and their team-mates).

I agree with Peter that it could become a very interesting AGM discussion topic, but there's no reason to throw it about here first.
My two cents is that there is something inherently unfair in allowing a team two bites at the cherry before the opponents get a go at the question. For this reason alone I would not be in favour of that change, but would support a move to the 'old' or MQL individual question style. We've all been in a position where we have passed an individual question to a team-mate who is bouncing on his chair with glee as he is certain he knows the answer, only to be disappointed when the answer tendered is the purest tripe and our own no-better-than-50% guess turns out to be correct. And that, I would contend, is part of the joy and pain of this hobby we all love so much!